


City of Lights

by Alpined



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 14:01:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9901862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alpined/pseuds/Alpined
Summary: Emily recovers in Paris, trying to figure out who she is now that her old life is gone. JJ visits her.Takes place after Season 6 episode "Lauren," ignoring everything on the show that came after.





	

Emily’s always been good at languages; she had to be, after spending a childhood dragged from country to country like one of her mother’s accessories, settling just long enough to learn a new set of conjugations. Accents have always been harder for her, though. She remembers this fact the moment she touches down in Paris, the jarring of the landing sending waves of leftover pain scuttling through her abdomen. Even asking for a taxi, she feels the disconnect between her brain and her tongue. The words come out thick where they should be light, the crude influence of English winding unnatural Germanic tendrils all along syllables that shouldn’t exist in French. It comes back to her soon enough, though, once she begins dealing with the mundanities of directions and hotels and trying not to get scammed on the currency exchange. She wonders how long before she’s dreaming in French.

JJ comes and leaves, spending thousands in government money for a trip that lasts only a few hours. She’s distracted and their parting is all-business, though JJ hugs Emily tight to her before she leaves the café.

“I’ll visit soon, when we’re not at Defcon Negative-10,” she promises. “I’m always there when you need me.”

Emily tosses back a half-mast grin, sure that JJ means the words, and just as sure they hold a promise she’s unlikely to keep.

That evening she stares down at her three passports as she nurses a paper cup holding two vodkas from the hotel’s mini-fridge. She shuffles the passports as if she’s playing a shell game, knowing she has just as much chance of winning. She considers Germany—she’s always wanted to visit Munich. But then she decides France is as good a place as any, even if Paris is an indulgence; she’s here already, and she somehow can’t seem to muster the energy to move.

She finds an apartment quickly, puts down a deposit and begins to search for furniture. She becomes familiar with the neighborhood, finds the nearest grocery and book stores. She buys herself an old French dictionary whose cover caught her eye, knowing it’s superfluous in an age where the internet will conjugate for free. She finds a half-dozen coffee shops and finally picks the one she decides will be hers. She starts trying to convince herself she’s making a life for herself and not just filling up the time.

She lasts a whole six days without going online; she drinks coffee, she reads, she visits the Musée d’Orsay. Then she snaps like an addict tweaking for a fix and powers up her laptop so she can spend six hours googling her ex-coworkers’ names, searching police databases for cases that might interest the BAU, digging up any hint of what the team is up to. She stares at picture after picture of mutilated bodies with that strange mixture of fascination and horror that used to follow her with every case. Horror wins this time—because this isn’t her job anymore—and she’s able to shut down her computer and go wander along the Seine for a few hours. But that night she has nightmares—wakes up sweaty and disoriented, choked by her sheets and caught up in the memories of children she’s never seen before.

She’s got the money the government gave her; she’s got savings with interest built from living a frugal life bordering on Spartan for the past ten years. She doesn’t need to work. She’s technically not allowed to work—she’s not a French citizen, and a work visa is slow to come by, even with her connections. She halfheartedly petitions witness protection for a visa with one of her new names, but doesn’t end up pressing them. She can’t work in law enforcement anymore, and she sure as hell can’t work in intelligence, and that means she doesn’t really have any idea what she’s good for. She supposes she should be excited, should consider this a fresh start. There’s no real starting over, though, not at her age; her old lives are part of her skin, and she doesn’t feel like pretending.

Without realizing she’s doing it, she starts looking for the bad parts of the city, but seems to stumble upon a tourist attraction the moment the neighborhood starts to turn seedy. On nights when she finds sleep drifting out of reach, she’ll leave and come home in the early parts of the morning after wandering around the streets for hours. She makes small-talk with the girl down her hallway who works late nights. The girl, Élise, can’t be more than twenty. She’s got a sweet face framed by a lovely mess of dark curls, and she’s purposefully vague about her job. They don’t talk about much in particular, but since what’s heaviest on the mind tends to bubble up to the surface, Emily learns pretty soon that a large part of the way Élise’s eyes never seem to settle is due to an asshole of an ex-boyfriend who hasn’t been around in a while.

Emily subconsciously begins to take note of the girl’s arrivals, surreptitiously checks to make sure she’s made it home safely most nights. One evening, she comes home to find Élise’s door wedged open and a man’s voice rising angrily through the crack. Emily doesn’t hesitate. She pushes her way in and finds a tall, unshaven man bending Élise’s back painfully down across the wood grain of her table. He looks like he’s just come off a high; Emily instinctively guesses heroin. She slips over to him and yanks him away from the girl; he stumbles a step before spinning to face her, his eyes wild.

“Putain!” he snarls, lunging at her. 

Twenty minutes later, she’s hauling him down to the Préfecture de Police. His hands are bound by her belt, and he’s weaving a bit from the cast-iron skillet Emily swung at his temple. Emily hands him over to the police, pretending like it was only blind luck and an addict’s disorientation that allowed her to disable a 6-foot-4 man with arms the size of mac trucks and a nasty left hook. She conveniently fails to mention the knife she had to wrestle from him; he’s either too tweaked out or too smart to mention it himself. It turns out he’s on a watch-list for armed assault and they cart him away. Élise seems grateful—she stutters out something in French and can’t quite seem to meet Emily’s eyes—but that’s the last time they have their late-night talks.

After that incident, Emily finds herself hanging around the Préfecture, making up a cover about being in private security, checking on some leads. She flirts with a pretty French policewoman named Martine. Martine’s nose is slightly hooked, her fingernails bitten, her grin crooked, her French littered with the cursewords Emily still delights in saying. They have sex in Emily’s half-filled apartment, Emily remembering how it feels to have corded muscles play out beneath her palms.

“Qui êtes-vous, Nathalie Leveque?” Martine murmurs sleepily after they’ve thrown the sheets off the bed and are both waiting for the hot April night to wrap them up in sleep. Martine doesn’t really want an answer; Emily can tell she likes Emily’s mystery, thinks it’s harmless. Emily doesn’t respond. Martine falls asleep, and Emily spends the next hour listening through her window to the sounds of voices and street music punctuated by the occasional smash of a bottle on the pavement.

She checks in on her sources to make sure Declan is alright, to see if Doyle has showed up on anyone’s radar. He hasn’t, and she knows that should worry her. But he can’t hurt people if he’s always running, and Interpol is good for that much at least. She toys with chasing him down, but she’s honest enough to know that there are people with more skill and far more resources working on finding him; she’d just be in the way. If she hears that he’s resurfaced, she supposes she’ll have to go after him. She might have once relished the thought, considered it a chance to exorcise old demons. But now she thinks she’d do it purely out of a sense of responsibility—a need to put things in order and clean up old messes. And she’s tired enough to admit to herself that the thought of chasing after him terrifies her, because she still remembers the feeling of being hunted, and the feeling of her ripped skin and punctured lung and bloody mouth and pain pain pain, which are not things you forget easily.

Emily’s been in Paris nearly three months when JJ finally makes good on her promise to visit. They’ve been like pen pals these past months, though Emily can’t recall any of her own childhood penpals discussing the behavioral antics of Paul Bundy at length, as she and JJ have upon occasion. Hotch emails too, though his emails are rarer and nearly devoid of the personal. She thinks he may have forgotten how to make small-talk, even when he’s writing. Besides the faceless bureaucrats who handled her paperwork, JJ and Hotch are the only ones who know where Emily is. The two of them were the only ones who visited her at the hospital, who swam into her vision when she finally woke up from the anaesthesia to realize, with less joy than pure surprise, that she wasn’t as dead as expected. 

Emily Prentiss doesn’t exist anymore for anyone but JJ and Hotch. She was Lauren, and then she was Emily again, and now she’s Nathalie Leveque. It’s too much for one person, and somehow who she really is got lost along the way, bits of herself sloughed off with each discarded personality, until she’s left with a patchwork self that’s worn down in parts and held together in others only through habit and a determination not to examine herself too closely.

 

So when Emily first sees the email from JJ, she freezes, even while her pulse trips and then stumbles to recovery. She finds she’s having difficulty processing the idea, because it feels like so long since that world was real and touchable. D.C. feels far away, and there’s already a thin wall growing between the reality of the people and her memories of them. Even so, the thought of JJ suddenly makes her feel like everything that was is just within reach, just an instant behind her. She’s told herself to give them all up, because there’s no going back. But she can’t. She’s still stuck there, tethered. She’s not even sure she would go back if she could—so much of it was ugly, and too much of it was built on lies. But that thread is still there, pulling her off-balance, and so she responds with an enthusiastic email promising to show JJ all the wonders of the City of Lights.

As she waits for JJ in the Paris airport, Emily lets herself imagine how things will go. They’ll hug each other in greeting, laughing as they stoically hold back tears; they’ll spend the next few days sampling Paris at Emily’s recommendation. Emily will put on a breezy front she knows is utterly convincing, and introduce JJ to the freedom and wonder of the city. They’ll periodically circle back to the job and become serious, touching on old cases with the silent understanding that now is not the time to delve too deeply. JJ will fill her in on family news and Emily will pretend like she hasn’t been keeping track of the BAU since she left; pretend like she doesn’t know that Rossi’s working on a new book, that Penelope and Kevin are getting married, that Morgan’s mother passed away in March, that JJ and Will are getting a divorce, that Reid began teaching a class at Georgetown. JJ will leave satisfied that things couldn’t have worked out better for Emily; that she’s finally happy now that she’s free from the crushing horror of their job. They’ll make a plan to see each other in a few more months.

All of this flashes across Emily’s mind, each event a domino setting off the next, all leading to Emily being left alone, again. She’s determined that this is the best course of action. But when JJ finally catches sight of her, her eyes lighting up with uncountable pleasure, Emily just starts crying, and doesn’t stop even when JJ says nothing, only wraps her up in her arms and holds on. 

They stand there for a long moment, Emily nearly sagging onto JJ and not really giving a fuck that some of the passing travelers give them disapproving looks. Finally, when Emily’s breathing is normal again, JJ whispers into her ear, breath warm on her neck, “Let’s get you home.”

Emily gives a helpless, strangled cough of laughter at the impossibility of that task, but she pulls away from JJ and begins to lead her towards a taxi. She doesn’t quite meet JJ’s eyes as she opens the taxi door for her, but the moment they slide along the worn vinyl seats, Emily lets out the breath she’s been holding a gives JJ a good once-over. She looks good. Her hair’s shorter than when Emily last saw her, and the bangs are gone. Her collar is still primly creased; she looks like she just stepped out of a spa, not an 8-hour flight from D.C., which somehow doesn’t surprise Emily a bit. JJ lifts an eyebrow in response to her stare and Emily laughs, shaking her head ruefully. “Well, that was embarrassing.”

JJ shrugs good-naturedly. “Wasn’t quite the greeting I was expecting, I’ll admit. A girl could start to wonder, she gets enough welcomes like that.”

Emily’s lips twist upwards and she reaches over to grab JJ’s hand where it rests on the seat. She gives it a slight squeeze, meeting JJ’s gaze seriously. “It’s really good to see you.”

JJ nods, her smile gentler now. “It’s good to see you too.”

Emily begins to point out the streets and sights slipping by their window, and by the time they arrive at her apartment, she can almost pretend things are going to plan. Emily pays the cab driver and hefts JJ’s suitcase, grinning when JJ rolls her eyes. They go to the third floor and Emily lets JJ in, her keys jingling as she drops them in the bowl waiting by the door.

JJ’s eyes sweep the apartment, and Emily holds her breath, knowing she’s profiling the place. When Emily found out JJ was coming, she’d hastily bought six paintings and a hodgepodge of vases and tasteful decorations to fill the apartment. Emily’s tastes have always veered towards the austere, but she hadn’t considered how spartan her apartment must look until she’d thought about someone visiting. Even with the new additions, though, Emily knows the emptiness speaks to her state of mind, and not for the first time she curses the inherent nosiness of profilers. But JJ doesn’t say anything about the décor, just turns to Emily and whistles appreciatively.

“Does Witness Protection know they’re essentially funding a vacation chateau?”

“It’s not that nice,” Emily protests, before adding dryly, “and no. Witness Protection is funding my kitchen, and possibly my closet. The rest is the fruits of being born wealthy and investing well.”

“Hey, I am not complaining,” JJ responds, holding up her hands defensively. “I fully intend to take advantage of your hospitality.”

“Good,” Emily says with a nod, finding herself smiling again. “Do you think you could handle dinner now? I promise you’ve never had duck like the duck confit at Café Boulud.”

JJ showers and changes, wafting out of the washroom in an elegant summer dress like she just stepped out of Roman Holiday. Café Boulud is walking distance, and the time between Emily’s apartment and the restaurant sparks by as the two of them suddenly try to catch up in a jumble of digressions and interruptions and laughter. They continue the conversation at their table over a bottle of local wine, Emily prizing JJ for details about Henry, the Pentagon, her move back to the BAU.

JJ turns the conversation back on Emily, and Emily begins describing the little neighborhoods surrounding her apartments, the hours she’s lost along the river, the way the streets fill out during June and the smell of baking bread meanders slyly down the avenues. Somewhere along the way she realizes with gentle surprise that she really does love this city. Even with its tourist traps, the disapproving looks she gets when her accent slips, the preposterous prices. Like the most patient of rebound girlfriends, Paris took her in when she was hurt and lost, let her wallow and drift and feel sorry for herself. And in turn, she’s embraced its own flaws, even if she hadn’t realized that until now.

JJ must notice some shift in Emily’s tone, because she smiles and says, “I think Paris suits you.”

Emily ducks her head, gives a half-shrug. “Maybe. Certainly could have been worse.”

They wander home leisurely, a little tipsy from the wine, JJ’s shoulder brushing Emily’s as they walk. Emily keeps the lights dim when they arrive back at the apartment, disdainfully ignoring JJ’s protests that Emily should keep the bed and she should take the couch.

“I spent a lot of money on that couch,” Emily points out. “It’s Swedish. It turns into a bed, and I think it might turn into a rocket ship if you read the owner’s manual properly.”

“Fine,” JJ says, laughing. Her smile slowly smooths out into something more serious. Her lips twitch upwards again and she steps over to hug Emily tight to her, burying her nose at her neck. Her cheek, soft and warm, presses against Emily’s.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

Emily goes to sleep in her $2000 pull-out sofa, and has strange, fantastical dreams of carpet rides and Orville Wright. 

The next day they dive right into the tourist business. They visit the Louvre before wandering through the Latin Quarter. Then they spend a gross amount of money along the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and finally settle down at an overpriced coffee shop. Lugging someone around a new city, especially one as baggage-heavy as Paris, can feel like a chore. But only an hour in, Emily gives into the whole thing. She plays the role of tourist guide with strange delight, pointing out the less-noticed aspects of the the streets and taking a nerdish pleasure in recounting obscure historical facts. JJ seems inexhaustibly entertained, and by her second day there, Emily could swear she was a native, despite not knowing a lick of French. But then again, that’s always been JJ’s skill. While Hotch relies on authority, Reid on facts, Morgan on a calculated mixture of charm and strength, JJ’s weapon has always been sheer competence. She displays this to a fine degree in the city, where she takes every new offering in stride before twisting it to match her own needs. On day three, Emily actually witnesses an American tourist—a middle-aged blond woman with a honeyed drawl—approach JJ to ask for directions. And, cool as a frozen cucumber, JJ had described in perfect detail how to reach the Arc de Triomphe.

“Thank you, dear,” the woman responds gratefully, cheeks dimpling. She pats JJ on the arm. “And your English is really quite excellent.”

“That’s very kind of you,” JJ responds, utterly straight-faced. 

Day four and JJ finally broaches the subject of relationships. “Are you seeing anyone?” she asks, leaning back in her chair and taking a delicate sip from her café Americano as she eyes Emily over its rim.

Emily hesitates. Then she starts to talk about Martine, who despite being the recipient of roughly four late-night encounters (only two dinners), is still the closest Emily’s had to a relationship of any kind. Emily sees a flicker cross JJ’s face when she mentions the policewoman, unnoticeable if it hadn’t been Emily’s job to notice things like that. She doesn’t think it’s surprise in the fact—just surprise that she’s actually telling.

“What does she think you do?” JJ asks.

“Private investigator,” Emily answers, smiling wryly.

JJ suddenly looks contemplative. “It doesn’t have to be a lie, you know. You really should consider the investigative business—private and corporate. Corporate especially pays pretty well these days. You’d be good at it.”

“Are you serious?”

JJ shrugs. “Sure.” She grins. “Nathalie Leveque: Private Eye.”

Emily snorts. “God, can you see me? A fedora? A dim office above the river?”

“A long-legged brunette with a troubled past?” JJ offers, lifting an eyebrow.

Emily shakes her head in amusement. “Sounds like trouble to me.”

“Sounds like fun to me.”

“That kind of work is less snooping for clues and more googling people these days,” Emily points out, before the conversation shifts and they begin discussing Sarkozy’s latest disaster. But the idea is stuck, wedged somewhere in Emily’s mind should she ever want to return. 

Late on the afternoon of JJ’s sixth day there, Emily’s starting to feel drained. She’s not sure she can handle another museum, and she knows she can’t handle a trip to the Eiffel Tower, something she’s been putting off with a mild sense of dread. JJ seems game for anything, but Emily’s also noticed a tapering of her enthusiasm.

When Emily enters the living room area that day, JJ’s checking her email, her brow slightly creased.

“Something up?”

JJ looks up and shakes her head. “Not really. Well, maybe. I just got sent a couple of case files to look over.”

Emily hesitates. “If you have work to do…I mean, would you maybe like to just…stay in, tonight?”

JJ breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh thank God. I don’t think I can handle being a tourist anymore. It’s exhausting, as much as I appreciate you showing me around.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Emily says dryly. “I’ve got vegetables here and there’s a butcher just around the corner—I’ll cook us dinner.”

“Sounds perfect,” JJ says, and Emily can’t help but silently agree.

JJ helps Emily cook, the two of them sliding in and out of each other’s space as if they’ve been doing this for years. Their dinner conversation is easy and light, no hint of work past or present intruding. Later that evening JJ sits working at her computer and Emily reads a book. For a long time there’s no sound but the tapping of JJ’s keyboard and the gentle hum of voices drifting through the open windows. Emily looks up from her book for a moment so she can watch JJ, feeling the breeze slide over the window ledge and brush against her skin. She feels calm, and content, and somehow light. JJ looks up and meets her gaze. She smiles but doesn’t say anything, before returning to her work.

It’s fully dark outside when Emily gets up and begins gathering fresh sheets for the beds. She dumps them at the foot of the couch and is about to sit down and resume reading when she hears JJ say, “Are we ever going to talk?”

Emily freezes, her back to JJ. “About what?”

“About how you’re really doing.”

Emily slowly turns to face JJ, who’s staring directly at her. Emily’s eyes shift, not quite willing to meet JJ’s, and she shrugs. “I’m fine.”

“I don’t believe you,” JJ says pointedly, lifting an eyebrow. “You don’t get to get away with bursting into tears in the middle of the city’s airport. How are you, really?”

Emily hesitates. Then her gaze finally slides to meet JJ’s, and she takes a deep breath before letting it go. “I’m sad,” she says simply, offering JJ a wry smile. JJ nods, and Emily keeps talking. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t have a purpose anymore. I don’t even have a real name. I miss home. I’m too old to start over, JJ. I’ve done it too many times, and I’m just…tired.” 

JJ uncurls from her seat and comes over to meet Emily. Emily looks at her suspiciously and JJ rolls her eyes, nudging Emily gently to the couch. They sit down next to each other, and JJ looks at Emily, her expression soft. “Not many people get a fresh start after the kind of thing you went through.”

“I don’t want a fresh start,” Emily says, her anger bordering on petulance. “I don’t want to meet new people. I don’t want a new job. I don’t want to be here, but I don’t… have anywhere else to go.” She bites off her next words, not sure what more to say. 

JJ’s silent for a moment, Emily’s words hovering between them. She reaches over to squeeze Emily’s hand. “I’ve missed you. When I left the BAU, it was hard enough, but having you gone—there was something missing. And I know it’s hard. I know it’s not fair.” She breathes in, before her lips pull into a thin line and her eyes narrow. “But you need to buck the fuck up, Emily.” Emily blinks. “You’re wallowing. You’re stuck. And I understand—you lost a lot. You’re entitled to feel sorry for yourself. But the only thing that’s holding you back right now is you. I’ve seen you weather terrible things and come out stronger. This isn’t you. The Emily I know would beat this.”

Emily gives a half shrug, trying to smile but not quite making it. “You’re right, obviously,” she says. She blinks, feeling a couple of tears spill over, and she swipes a hand roughly over her cheek. “But…I want to go home,” she continues quietly, knowing she sounds pathetic. “And I don’t think I have one anymore.”

JJ stares at her for a moment, then reaches over and slips her arm around Emily, pulling her in for a hug. Emily lets her, burying her forehead at the crook of JJ’s neck. She breathes in, and JJ smells the same as always. For just a moment, it’s like she really is home.

She finally pulls away. JJ looks at her, then reaches up to cup Emily’s cheeks and run a thumb under each of her eyes, wiping away the remnants of tears. Emily gives a small, slightly embarrassed laugh, and there’s a hint of a responding smile from JJ. And, hands still gently cradling the sides of Emily’s face, JJ leans in and kisses her. Emily lets her do that, too.

They hold the kiss; it’s sweet and promising. Then JJ slides her lips to the curve of Emily’s jaw, the slope of her throat.

“JJ,” Emily says quietly, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Do you really—“

“Yes,” JJ responds, so matter-of-factly that Emily has to laugh. They meet each other’s eyes; there’s a sparkle in JJ’s, but also a hunger. Emily leans back in and they kiss again, more eagerly than sweet this time. 

Emily appreciates her rocket-ship couch, but she appreciates her bed a lot more, so she tugs JJ up, letting her lips skim across her collarbone as she steers her towards the bedroom. JJ’s hands are already sliding underneath Emily’s shirt, and Emily eagerly lets her lift her shirt off.

A moment later they’re scrabbling at each other’s clothing, the back of Emily’s knees hitting the bed as she pulls JJ down with her. If this is JJ’s first time, she doesn’t show it: her hands are nearly as deft as her tongue, which is a close second to her lips as they paint a trail across Emily’s neck, her breasts, her stomach. Then again, that’s not surprising, considering JJ’s ability to adapt to any situation. Emily thinks you could probably toss her into a group of ice fisherman; she’d look around, sniff once, then pick up a pole and start fishing.

But Emily’s not really interested in ice at the moment, not when JJ’s finally naked below her, one leg twisting around Emily’s to pull them flush to each other. Emily’s wet, and she finds JJ wetter; her fingertips brush against her and JJ bucks, her fingers digging into Emily’s back as she inhales sharply. Emily catches her lips before she can exhale, feeling her moan against her mouth as she slides her fingers inside.

Afterwards, when they’re finally curled up in each other, legs tangled together as their pulses begin along a smooth descent, there’s time to slow down. JJ runs her fingers down Emily’s side, light as a breath as they skim across her ribs, before finally stilling when they reach the ugly, puckered skin of the scar. Emily’s fingers are idly winding through the hair at the base of JJ’s neck, but they stop when JJ reaches the spot. JJ looks up at her, her expression unreadable. Then she leans down and places a soft kiss just above the scar, before moving up Emily’s body to kiss her on the lips.

JJ falls asleep before Emily does, but Emily doesn’t mind. It’s the first time she’s not thinking of somewhere else when she finally closes her eyes.

\--

Emily wakes up with JJ tucked against her, one arm flung across Emily’s waist, one toe just poking over the side of the bed. Emily lets her lips brush against JJ’s hair, breathing in. She feels JJ start to wake up. When JJ opens her eyes, there’s a momentary flash of confusion when she sees Emily, and Emily’s heart nearly stops beating. But then JJ grins shyly, tilts her head, and gives Emily a light kiss on the corner of her lips.

“Good morning.”

“It is,” Emily agrees, feeling her smile grow.

They shower and Emily brews coffee, keeping a tight hold on her urge to freak the fuck out. 

“So what are we going to do today?” JJ asks after she’s changed, almost as if nothing has changed. Emily’s not quite sure what to do with that, so she casually suggests a few new places for them to visit, keeping her hands busy as she tidies up the kitchen. JJ nods, then steps over to Emily and rests her hand on top of Emily’s, which is furiously and rather compulsively scrubbing the now-pristine countertop.

“Hey,” JJ says, lifting an eyebrow. She leans over and places a soft, utterly reassuring kiss on Emily’s lips, and Emily feels herself grinning into it. “We can talk later. Let’s see the city now.”

And just like that, Paris is romantic, Paris is new, Paris is the City of Lights, Love, and all the other nicknames worn nearly threadbare after being passed through the generations. Their hands brush as they walk beside the Seine before JJ almost casually slips her hand through Emily’s; later, Emily tugs JJ into an alley off of Boulevard St. Germain and pushes her against the stone walls as they kiss, feeling like a rebellious teenager on spring break; they spend an hour talking and watching the cherry blossoms fall, Emily wrapping her arms around JJ as JJ leans back against her. 

Emily’s never felt more ridiculous. She’s never felt happier.

That evening when they’ve arrived back at Emily’s apartment and shaken off the remnants of the city, there’s a moment of tense, unpredictable anticipation as the two of them prepare for the night. They have no plan, but suddenly every movement has hidden meanings and unspoken intentions; the feeling is both frightening and exciting, filling the air between them with a crackling electricity. 

It all gets defused when Emily feels JJ’s hand at the small of her back as she puts up the last of yesterday’s dishes. JJ’s hand slides around Emily’s stomach until the two of them are pressed back to front. Emily feels JJ’s breath on the back of her neck, her body reacting with a traitorous mixture of goosebumps and hitched breath and good old-fashioned pulse-racing. Emily barely allows JJ to place a kiss at her neck before she’s spun around and shoved her against the counter, mashing their lips together as her fingers scrabble at the infuriatingly endless buttons of JJ’s shirt. Emily practically yanks JJ towards the bedroom, the two of them discarding clothing at an increasingly frenzied pace. For a moment, Emily tries to show the restraint of the night before, but she wants JJ too much, and they end up halfway towards fucking before they even get to the bed. Emily doesn’t even care about herself; she just wants to make JJ come, again and again, which JJ does with a loss of control Emily hadn’t realized she wanted to see until now.

A long while later, after they’ve thrown the sheets off the bed and are lying side by side, hips and fingertips and knees overlapping, JJ lets out a rueful chuckle.

“This is surreal.”

“Really?” Emily asks, tilting her head towards JJ and lifting an eyebrow. “It felt pretty real to me.”

“I was speaking more generally,” JJ says, rolling her eyes. “I swear, Emily, I didn’t come to Paris with the intention of seducing you.”

“Seducing?” Emily says in amusement, rolling the word along her tongue. “I think I have a pretty good claim to the seducer title myself, but I won’t argue semantics. Maybe it’s just being in Paris.”

JJ snorts. “You don’t believe that. I would have visited you anywhere.”

“Really?” Emily asks, skepticism lacing her voice. “I somehow doubt you’d have been so quick to visit me if I was in Witness Protection in Kyrgyszstan.”

JJ shakes her head, smiling, before turning on her side to face Emily. “I’ll admit, sight-seeing in Kyrgyszstan might have been slightly less appealing. But I don’t think you can blame the city for this one.”

“No,” Emily says softly, before reaching over to tuck a stray strand of hair behind JJ’s ear. She lets her thumb run along JJ’s cheek before letting her hand fall to the mattress. She sighs. “So what are we going to do?”

JJ grimaces. “I don’t know. I leave in two days, and you know how vacations with the BAU don’t actually exist.”

Emily nods. “I know.” She feels her jaw clenching; JJ notices and reaches over to rest her hand on Emily’s hip.

“Hey. They’ll catch Doyle eventually, you know. He’ll make a mistake.”

Emily shrugs. “I know. But there’s no telling when. And until that happens, I’m just…stuck.”

JJ doesn’t say anything immediately, just nods. They’ve both seen enough victims to know better than to hang their hopes on false assurances. Finally, JJ gives a faint smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “This isn’t easy.”

“It’s never easy,” Emily says, before offering JJ a lopsided grin. “I can’t remember the last time either of us has ever done easy.”

~~~~

Two days is not so long, really. They make the most of it, but it feels like no time at all before Emily is standing with JJ in the airport, wondering how the same place can house such different emotions in a one-week span. The crowd of passengers rushing to make their flights ebbs and flows around them, French voices mixing with snatches of English, German, Spanish.

“I really don’t want to do this part,” Emily admits, letting JJ’s bag rest gently on the floor between them.

“I know,” JJ says, letting out an unsteady breath and offering Emily a wry smile. “I feel like I’m always saying goodbye to you.”

“Maybe it would be easier…” Emily begins hesitantly, trying to keep her face expressionless when she looks at JJ. But JJ anticipates her next words, her tone tart.

“Don’t even say it. I’ve got more frequent flyer miles than I know what to do with. I’ll make time to visit. And if they catch Doyle, you’ll be back at the BAU before you know it.”

“Would they even want me back?” Emily says lightly, trying to turn the words into a joke. But JJ must know that Emily really does want an answer, wants to know whether they could let her back in after she lied and lied again, after she tried to kill a man, after her death, the biggest lie of all.

And JJ doesn’t hesitate, just says, “Yes.”

“Thank you,” Emily answers quietly, relief sharp as crystal in her voice, before she closes the distance between them and hugs JJ tight to her. “Keep safe,” she demands, and JJ laughs, pulling back, though not all the way.

“I will,” she says with a nod. She leans in for a kiss, the feeling both new and like something they could have been doing forever. Noise fades away, until a bored voice announces safety precautions in French over the loudspeaker—a twin to every voice speaking English in American airports—and JJ breaks away.

“You should go,” Emily prods. “You don’t want to miss your flight.”

JJ nods and bends over to heft her bag. She seems about to say something more, but then she just looks at Emily, smiles, and turns to go. Emily watches as she’s swallowed up in the crowd. She stands there for another ten minutes staring at the spot, barely registering whenever an errant shoulder from a passer-by sends her swaying. Finally, she sighs and turns to leave.

Emily pauses just outside the doors to the airport, feeling incapable of processing her welter of emotions. She ruefully decides she might as well just admit she's desperately sad, but just then she receives a text from JJ.

_See you soon, Emily._

Emily smiles and slips the phone into her pocket, before drawing a deep breath and stepping out into the warm Paris sun.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this over five years ago and just rediscovered it. God, JJ and Emily were the best. A bit of what might have been.


End file.
